


Twelve Hours

by lears_daughter



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Kilgrave is a warning, Mind Control, Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:16:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lears_daughter/pseuds/lears_daughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, during the time Jessica was under Kilgrave's control, he went away for three days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelve Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Jessica Jones.

Twelve hours. That’s the limit of Kilgrave’s control over her, and they both know it. As a result, over the months he's had her Jessica has become extremely good at keeping time in her head. _One one thousand, two one thousand…_ Anytime she enters a room, her first instinct is to seek out a clock, to make a mental note of his most recent command. Usually it’s only been seconds or, at most, minutes since he last told her to do something. 

Kilgrave, on the other hand, relies on a phone app he talked someone into designing for him to make sure twelve hours never slip by without him noticing.

Like the time he told Jessica, “Fuck me like you love me and then cuddle with me all night.” He’d taken great pleasure in not giving her any other commands that evening, in letting her _choose_ to wrap her lips around his cock, to ride him, to lie on her stomach and urge him to press inside her untried ass. And, as commanded, she’d fallen asleep spooned with him, her front to his back, her nose in the crook of his neck.

She’d slept deeply for hours, until Kilgrave’s phone blared the alarm. Twelve hours were almost up. Before silencing the phone, he’d looked at Jessica and said, “Suck me off, darling.”

Even with the vestiges of sleep wrapped around her and her own mind screaming _No, I was so close!_ , she’d slid down the bed to do his bidding.

Kilgrave doesn’t seem to have interests or a life outside of Jessica, so it’s a shock when he tells her one day that he’s going to have to go away for a short while. He must see the gleam of excitement in her eyes, because he waves a stern finger at her. “That doesn’t mean I’m letting you go, Jessica.”

She flinches (and hates herself for it) and his expression softens. He cups her face, running his thumb over her cheekbone. “I’m sorry, darling,” he tells her. “This is going to be unpleasant for you.”

He has his driver take them to an abandoned warehouse outside the city. He holds her hand as he leads her through the massive, empty building to what looks like a large metal cube in the center. He dials in a code on a keypad and a door creaks open with a hiss.

“Look inside,” he urges her.

The interior is bare except for a bucket whose purpose she doesn’t want to guess at and a tiny camera in one corner, nestled against the ceiling. She wants to look at Kilgrave in question—what kind of sick joke is this?—but can’t until he follows up his last order with, “Now look at me.”

His face, which she has long since come to hate, is creased with an expression it takes her several seconds to identify as concern. “Jessica, do you remember when we tested the limits of your abilities shortly after we met?”

She remembers. She remembers hours of jumping, over and over again, trying to get a little higher, do a little better for him. She remembers weight-lifting large items in a freight yard until she reached one she couldn’t lift (a train car). She remembers breaking her own arm and waiting three days for it to heal.

“Yes.”

“I had this little room built not long after that,” Kilgrave explains. “Please listen to what I am saying, darling. Despite your awesome gifts, you are _not strong enough_ to break out of this cell. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she says, dully, even as her mind races. Is he going to leave her here, without any commands? If so, she won’t have to take him at his word. She’ll throw herself against the walls until one of them opens for her.

Perhaps he perceives that she doesn’t believe him. “Jessica, the walls are made of adamantium. This room is specifically designed to hold you. Don’t try to break free. Just wait for me to come back and get you.”

“I won’t try to break free,” she promises. “I’ll wait for you to come back and get me.” _For twelve hours_ , she finishes in her mind. _After that, I’m out of here, jackass_.

He sighs. “I know you’ll try as soon as you can. You’ll only be hurting yourself. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Jessica. I promise.”

He fucks her against the wall of the cube before he goes, because imprisonment in a metal box wouldn’t be complete without his semen dribbling down her legs. Then he orders her inside the box and says, “Do push-ups forever.”

Even as she moves to obey, she can’t help but be astonished by the order. Kilgrave likes to pretend they’re an actual couple and rarely orders her to harm herself for no reason. _Thirty-nine, forty_ … So what could be the rationale behind this command? She’s so focused on her task that she barely notices when he leaves, locking the door behind him. _Eighty-one, eighty-two…_

It isn’t until she’s about six hundred push-ups in and her arms have begun to tremble that she gets it. He wants her to wear herself out before his control over her wears off. He probably thinks she’s less likely to try to escape if she’s too tired to move.

Driven by his command, she does push-ups for twelve hours. By the second hour, her form has gone a little sloppy. By the sixth, it’s become hard to breathe. By the eighth, her entire body has begun to shudder violently. And by the time the command wears off, it is all that she can do to drop her chest to the floor and then pathetically push herself back up.

The instant his hold on her is released, it’s as if a breath of fresh air has swept into the tiny cell and cleared her head for the first time in months. (In fact, the cell reeks of her sweat, his semen, and the urine from when she pissed herself mid-push-up several hours ago.)

She lies on her back, panting, staring up at the ceiling.

“Fucking Kilgrave,” she says, both testing the freedom of her mind and making sure he isn’t right outside, watching her on the camera. “Motherfucking, cunt, asshole, Nancy-boy, bastard Kilgrave.”

Nothing happens.

His push-up ploy worked, in that she’s too weak to move for hours. At first, despite herself, she sleeps. When she wakes, still exhausted, she sits up and begins to analyze the cell with her eyes, seeking points of weakness. The best option is a tiny air vent high on one wall. 

By the time she can stand again, Kilgrave has been gone for maybe twenty hours. She goes to work.

First things first, she destroys the camera. Then she jumps up to latch her hand on the air vent and gives a firm wrench.

In her mind, the wall of the cell tears like tin foil under her grip. In reality, nothing happens. She tries again. Still nothing.

Unbidden, Kilgrave’s words echo in her head. _Adamantium_ … _Specifically designed to hold you_ …

She bites back the sob that threatens to escape her. She’s free for the first time, god dammit. Kilgrave isn’t controlling her. And she’s got freaking _superpowers_. She’s going to get out of here, somehow, and then she’s going to go to Trish’s apartment and take the longest shower of all time, and then she’s going to hunt Kilgrave down and decorate his face with his insides.

She walks over to the wall with the door, braces herself, makes a fist, and begins to punch the seam, again and again and again.

* * *

Kilgrave is gone for three days, if she’s tracking the time right in her head. Three days in, her knuckles are a pulverized mess. The wall is covered in her blood. Her forehead aches from when she went a little crazy and tried to head-butt the door. Her mouth is tacky with dehydration. She hasn’t slept in two days and her thoughts have turned foggy. 

She can’t get out of this godforsaken box. Kilgrave was right. It’s too strong for her.

Under other circumstances, that would be okay; it really would. She would be okay with spending the rest of her miserable life in this cell, if she knew that she'd be free of him forever. But knowing that Kilgrave will be back, that it’s just a matter of time before he fucks her mind again, makes this imprisonment unbearable.

There are hints of insanity to the way she throws herself against the wall, clawing at it, desperate to escape and knowing she can’t.

She’s switched from punching the door to ineffectually kicking it by the time Kilgrave returns. She’s just pulled back her leg for another kick when the door swings open. She stares at it dumbly, fatigue and dehydration preventing her from understanding. And then Kilgrave is there, a sad smile on his face, and before she can even think about attacking him he says, “Oh, darling. Go to sleep.”

Her eyes slip shut and she’s unconscious before she hits the floor.

* * *

When she wakes, with no idea how long she’s been asleep, he’s at her bedside, watching her. She tenses. He says, “Relax.”

She relaxes, though her heart continues to race.

“You broke twelve bones in your hands,” Kilgrave tells her, accusing. “Three in your feet. You also gave yourself a skull fracture.”

If that’s true, she feels remarkably little pain.

“I’ve kept you sedated while you healed,” he says, reading the confusion in her face. She hates that he knows her so well. He shakes his head, and his voice is thick with frustration when he speaks next. “ _Why,_ Jessica? Why did you hurt yourself? I told you it would do no good!”

“Because I’d rather hurt myself than let you do it,” she answers automatically, fiercely glad to be able to voice her own thoughts for once.

For a moment, just a moment, there’s an emotion that’s almost human in the way he looks at her. Horror, or even possibly self-disgust. Maybe this is the moment he’ll realize how monstrous he is. Maybe this is the moment he’ll _let her go_.

Then he closes his eyes and murmurs, “This is why I can never let you go, Jessica. Without me around, you’re self-destructive. You need me to keep you safe.”

She pushes herself up on her elbows, rage burning hot within her. “No, I _don’t_ , you fu—”

“Hush,” he says before she can finish.

Her mouth clamps shut. She fumes at him with her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. “I knew this would happen if I went away, but it was unavoidable. I promise you, though, Jessica—I will _never leave you again_.”

His words are like the sealing of a coffin. She can see her whole future stretched out in front of her, an eternity of hell. She swallows a whimper.

He leans forward and kisses her gently. Because he hasn’t commanded her to, she doesn’t open her mouth and let him in. He presses against her closed lips for a few seconds before sitting back.

He stares at her, his expression unreadable, then shakes his head. “Beautiful, stubborn girl. You know life with me isn’t all that bad. I want you to be happy, the same way you make me happy.” A bright, almost child-like smile lights his face. “In fact! Why don’t you lie back and let _me_ pleasure _you_ for once.”

She can’t fight the command, doesn’t even try. She flops down on the bed and stares at the ceiling, her eyes prickling. She doesn’t watch as he pulls the blanket off of her, exposing her pajama-clad body to the cool air. She doesn’t watch as he draws off her pajama pants and panties. She doesn’t watch as he lowers his head to the junction of her thighs and inhales deeply.

She can’t help but gasp when he draws his tongue over her clit.

He hums, pleased by her involuntary response, and sets in with determination. She bites her lip until it bleeds and hates her body for warming to his touch.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Rescue of Jessica Jones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404876) by [Christyflare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christyflare/pseuds/Christyflare)




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